Born in the USA

“How come you people at the Times Union didn’t run a picture and story about the 300 millionth American born this week?”

That, sad to say, was the gist of a serious inquiry made by several readers. Well, we did publish stories on the topic, but we didn’t publish a story and photo about THE baby because absolutely no one knows who No. 300 million is. Matter of fact, absolutely no one knows for sure that our population has reached 300 million. The figure is simply a matter of educated guesswork by population specialists and demographers.

While late-night comics like Jay Leno were showing faked video footage of an illegal sneaking across the border with Mexico then being heralded as the 300 millionth, some otherwise serious news outlets trumpted the birth of No. 300 million right in their community.

The Chicago tabloid the Sun-Times blared on its front page (seen here), “The 300,000,000th American Is Born: HERE SHE IS!” and showed a photo of a baby born in Chicago. However, as it turns out the paper simply made that up.

The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago alternative publication that likes to debunk the mainstream media, jumped on that gaffe with both feet. At the same time, it provided a nice roundup of links to other news venues and how they handled the story and its various aspects.